I need to formally announce something that has never happened before in the history of us traveling:
Bedtime went well.
Like… actually well.
No dramatic monologues.
No someone-is-over-tired hallway pacing.
No “why does the AC sound like an airplane engine” crises.
No tears.
Not even mine.
We climbed into the hotel bed — her side, my side — which is really just a rough concept, because she always ends up curled against me like a baby koala with a strong emotional attachment clause.
White noise on.
Lights low.
Suitcase half-open on the floor because I refused to unpack anything until morning.
And then came the question, soft and familiar:
“Can you tell the Rainbow Tree story?”
So I started it — the same story we’ve told a hundred different ways — where she and Ellie find the glowing tree and go somewhere new each time.
Some nights it’s a garden, sometimes a ship, once it was a bakery run by clouds.
We never plan the ending.
We find it together.
Halfway through, her breathing shifted — that slow, heavy, safe kind of breathing.
She relaxed into me.
Her curls tickled my cheek.
Her hand found mine.
And for a moment — a whole minute even — the world stopped swirling.
We were just here.
Together.
Warm.
Safe.
Enough.
Traveling solo with a child is not a vacation — it’s an adventure and an endurance event with occasional snacks and plot twists.
But sometimes, in between the chaos and the carry-ons, you get a small miracle:
Peace.
No one will believe it happened.
But we will.
And that’s kind of the point.
